The methods in which consumers purchase or obtains items continually evolves. This may be seen, for example, in the area of procuring media content for private use. As used herein, media content may refer to, but is not limited to, motion pictures, television programs, sporting events, music, video games, or concerts. With the widespread adoption of the VHS video cassette recorder, retailers opened whose sole purpose was to lease or sell media content to consumers at commercial retail locations. This continued with the adoption of the digital versatile disc (DVD) player and the Blu-ray™ disc player.
Leases and purchases of media content have since moved to alternate delivery methods. For example, a self-service media content dispensing device, such as a kiosk, offers users the advantages of a self-service device where the user operates and completes the transaction. For the service provider of the dispensing device, advantages are realized by operating a device with a small footprint and avoiding the overhead of a retail establishment. As these self-service dispensing devices become more popular, methods and techniques to improve the consumer experience with these self-service devices becomes more important.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.